The Idaho Nuclear Technology and Engineering Center (INTEC) was established in the 1950s as a location for extracting reusable uranium from spent nuclear fuel. Until 1992, reprocessing efforts recovered more than one-billion dollars worth of highly enriched uranium. The highly radioactive liquid created in this process was turned into a solid through a process known as calcining.

Calcining converted over eight million gallons of liquid waste to a solid granular material that is now stored in bins awaiting a final disposal location outside of Idaho.

Past activities at INTEC have also included the storage of spent nuclear fuel in water basins to cool the fuel prior to reprocessing.

The Idaho Nuclear Technology and Engineering Center is located approximately 50 miles west of Idaho Falls and about 2 miles north of highway 20.

Management of spent nuclear fuel and high level waste are the key Settlement Agreement issues at INTEC. DOE has moved all spent nuclear fuel out of the older storage pools into dry storage and is working with a strategy to get the rest of the fuel into dry storage well ahead of the Settlement Agreement date of 2023. The spent nuclear fuel then must be removed from Idaho by 2035.

DOE has also made progress towards closing the pillar and panel tanks of the high-level waste tank farm. Several of the tanks in the tank farm have been emptied and cleaned and others are being cleaned in 2004. Concurrent with cleaning the empty tanks, DOE is operating evaporator systems to reduce the volume of liquid waste in the tank farm. Although a treatment alternative has not been selected for the sodium bearing waste, DOE is evaluating alternatives and should make a selection in the next year. This may allow DOE to meet the Settlement Agreement milestone of having the rest of the liquids out of the tank farm by the end of 2012. DOE is currently evaluating the alternative of shipping the calcine directly to a national geologic repository without further treatment. However, this decision does not need to be made until the end of 2009 to meet the Settlement Agreement milestone. As with the spent fuel, the high-level waste must all be out of Idaho by 2035.

INL Oversight performs a variety of environmental monitoring in the vicinity of INTEC. Monitoring results are made available to the public in quarterly and annual environmental monitoring reports.

INL Oversight monitors ambient penetrating radiation on and around the INL using Electret Ion Chambers (EIC's). EIC's are placed at each facility and at approximately two-mile intervals around the perimeter of the site. These devices are collected each quarter and processed to determine the quarterly total ambient penetrating radiation exposure for each location. Additionally, INL Oversight maintains High Pressure Ion Chambers (HPIC's) at several locations around the INL. These devices provide real-time radiation levels that can be monitored remotely.

Soil monitoring is performed to determine the presence and extent of man-made radionuclides in the terrestrial environment. The INL contractor performs periodic soil sampling and in-situ monitoring at and near the INL facilities. INL Oversight performs monitoring at a fraction of the contractor monitoring sites for verification of the contractor's reported results.

Air monitoring is performed to determine the presence and extent of man-made radionuclides in the atmosphere. INL Oversight maintains an array of air monitoring stations on and around the perimeter of the INL. The nearest air monitoring stations to INTEC are located at Experimental Field Station and Van Buren Avenue. Air samples are analyzed for the presence and concentration of atmospheric tritium, radioactive iodine, and suspended particulate matter for gross alpha and gross beta, gamma radionuclides, and annually for strontium-90, americium-241, plutonium-238, and plutonium-239/240.

Groundwater beneath INTEC has been impacted by historic operation of an injection well, disposal ponds, and by leaks in waste handling pipes and tanks over time. Treated wastes from reprocessing spent nuclear fuel were injected to the aquifer from 1953 through 1984. Leaks in pipes and tanks, and waste from other sources has resulted in contaminated perched ground water above the aquifer. Contaminants found in the aquifer because of INTEC operations include tritium, iodine-129, strontium-90, technetium-99, sodium, chloride, and nitrate. Other contaminants that have been detected include uranium, radioactive americium, cesium, potassium, and radium. Industrial wastewater from INTEC operations is currently disposed of to recently constructed sanitary waste trenches and to new ponds. INL Oversight monitors a total of eight wells in the aquifer near and down gradient from INTEC, as well as monitoring liquid effluent at one location.